A) You have to start somewhereB) The challengeC) You can learn a lot about how to design recipes by brewing proven ones yourselfD) You really like the beerE) You enjoy one (or many) of the dozens of other parts of our hobby aside from the recipe design process

Why roll the dice on 5 gallons of a brew that might be horrible when you can brew a tried and tested recipe?

Frankly, there's no difference between brewing a clone vs brewing a kit vs brewing someone else's recipe. Unless you're designing every single one of your recipes entirely from scratch, then it's all the same. And even then, if you're brewing a particular style, you're not really innovating anything anyways.

Some people enjoy crafting recipes and tasting the results, others simply enjoy the process of making beer. Some people are really into the equipment, automation, shiny stainless, and some people have been using the same old cooler for 10+ years. Some want to brew every style, some like to enter competitions, some like to brew one kind of beer over and over, some share, some hoard, we all have our reasons. Make what you want, drink what you like.

On a side note, I once knew a girl who was an excellent cook as long as she was following a recipe, but she could not look in her pantry and whip up something edible. For some people that takes knowledge and experience, others just don't think that way and can never get there. She still liked to cook though.

On a side note, I once knew a girl who was an excellent cook as long as she was following a recipe, but she could not look in her pantry and whip up something edible. For some people that takes knowledge and experience, others just don't think that way and can never get there. She still liked to cook though.

I am the opposite. I don't think I could follow a recipe if I tried. I like to do my own thing.

On a side note, I once knew a girl who was an excellent cook as long as she was following a recipe, but she could not look in her pantry and whip up something edible. For some people that takes knowledge and experience, others just don't think that way and can never get there. She still liked to cook though.

I am the opposite. I don't think I could follow a recipe if I tried. I like to do my own thing.

On a side note, I once knew a girl who was an excellent cook as long as she was following a recipe, but she could not look in her pantry and whip up something edible. For some people that takes knowledge and experience, others just don't think that way and can never get there. She still liked to cook though.

I am the opposite. I don't think I could follow a recipe if I tried. I like to do my own thing.

i'm actually doing my first clone (since my first kit) soon. I'm doing it as a learning experience to practice harvesting yeast and because I have sentimental reasons to make a certain beer. I've spent most of my adult life in the cooking profession and am not a recipe person. When I'm trying out something I have never done or am trying to perfect something that's not quite satisfactory I use recipes as a resource to check out proportions or to see where other people are going and riff on it. I kind of won my girlfriend over when I was at her house and she said she had nothing to eat. I looked around, found tomatoes, eggs, flour, and cheese and made ravioli in under an hour without looking at a recipe. The only recipes I really use verbatim are for a couple things like a perfect pizza dough and flour tortillas, but from there there is plenty of creativity in making that pizza or fish tacos. My point is that I wouldn't homebrew for long making just clones but there's nothing inherently wrong in following the occasional recipe if it can help you grow as a brewer, or just make a beer you like for less money

I guess in my mind, trying to brew a clone or "in the style of"... for me is an exercise in learning my ingredients. Manipulating a recipe based on taste alone to reproduce a commercial brew seems to me a like great palate training. Mostly I'm for brewing to style but even with that... 10 beers in the same style by 10 different brewers are gonna all taste different so why bother brewing anything that tastes like anything other than what you like.

I guess in my mind, trying to brew a clone or "in the style of"... for me is an exercise in learning my ingredients.

I agree. I tend to use a recipe (or a group of similar recipes) as a jumping off point and then adjust version 2.0 to my taste. A couple of moths ago I decided I wanted an IPA similar to Bell's Two Hearted. I started by finding a few "clone" recipes, all similar but with subtle differences, and sort of "averaging" them for my first pass. It was good, but didn't have quite the malt balance to the hop bitterness that I so enjoy in the Bell's. So I toyed with the grain bill and mash temp, and V2.0 is now my house IPA. Clone it, then personalize it.